


Three Years

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Civil War (Marvel), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 10:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11666889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: Tony contemplates three years of sobriety and finds it’s harder to do it alone.





	Three Years

**Author's Note:**

> For Stony Bingo square ‘Third Date’. AKA how to make an innocuous prompt super angsty.

He books a table for two at Vertigo and asks that they sit him somewhere quiet, then spends the rest of the day tinkering but getting no real work done. He walks to Vertigo because that’s what Steve used to do. He gets there forty minutes before his reservation and they repeatedly apologise because his table isn’t ready. They sit him in a quiet spot in the kitchen and feed him breadsticks and every time someone walks past they apologise. He wants to tell them to shut up but instead he smiles and says, ‘No problem,’ or ‘It’s my fault for being so early.’ He watches the waiters taking bottles to tables and instead of feeling proud, his fingers tap a restless beat on his knees and he feels ashamed.

The waiter comes to get him twenty minutes later and he apologises again. He offers a complimentary bottle of wine then blushes and stutters yet another apology. This time Tony says nothing.

Tony drags the seat around the table so it’s facing the window. The corner they’ve seated him in is only illuminated by a couple of candles and the New York skyline, but he doesn’t do it to be facing the view, he does it so he doesn’t have to look at the empty seat.

He sits and scours a wine list he never bothered to read before but when the waiter asks, he orders water. They bring expensive, imported mineral water and Steve would’ve sent it back and asked for tap, but Tony just nods. He looks out at the thousands of tiny lights and wonders where someone’s getting shot or having a heart attack or turning off the life support.

He rolls his three year coin between the fingers of his left hand while the thumb of his right glides over the rim of the wine glass filled with water. ‘Here’s to three,’ he mutters. _And to the next_ , says Steve.

He skips dinner and orders a slice of Sachertorte, _because this is a celebration_. He asks the waiter if they could please put three unlit candles on it, and the waiter’s little quirk of the eyebrow is the only give away that the request, or even Tony himself, is anything other than perfectly ordinary.

When the cake comes, he shuffles his chair so no one can see it, then lights the candles with a cigarette lighter because he’s been smoking for the first time in years. Not because he really wants to smoke, but because he really wants someone to ask him to stop. He watches the candles burn like he’s waiting for something. The wax melts and dribbles down all over the cake. He doesn’t even like Sachertorte. Steve did. His cell rings. He blows the candles out. 

Leaving the phone to ring, he takes a bite of the cake and nearly chokes on it. He closes his eyes, breathes slowly and asks himself what he’s doing. There’s nothing here but memories. He pulls a handful of notes from his wallet and throws them on the table. It’s too much.

He leaves the restaurant and walks just to walk. He stops at a convince store and buys a bottle of cheap vodka, because it’s that or beer. It’s not that he wants to, he just doesn’t know why he shouldn’t. The clerk stutters like he wants to say something, but Tony isn’t sure if it’s to ask for an autograph, comment on his tux or lecture him about the booze. He pays him enough to hope the press don’t hear.

As he leaves the store his cell rings again and even though he knows it hasn’t changed, it sounds more insistent this time. He answers without looking at who’s calling. ‘Yeah?’

‘Hey, Tony.’

‘Henry.’

‘Everything okay?’ He must really sound like shit if Henry’s picked up on it from a single word.

‘Yeah.’ He looks at the bottle in his hand and feels sick. ‘Actually, no.’

‘You need me to come get you?’

‘I’m not drunk.’

‘I know.’

Tony almost laughs, because of course Henry knows. They have known each other long enough and intimately enough to tell drunkenness from desperation. He wants to laughs but instead he is silent.

‘Tony?’

‘Okay.’ He doesn’t want Henry, but he needs him anyway.

‘Okay?’

‘Henry?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Can you come to the memorial?’

Henry doesn’t need to ask what memorial. ‘Of course.’

Tony hangs up and keeps walking. As he walks he looks at the bottle and thinks that Steve would be disappointed, but ultimately you can’t disappoint the dead. Tony sits on a bench some distance from the memorial because there are still people around. Smiling tourists taking snapshots and throwing coins in the fountain. It makes him feel sick and he cradles the bottle like a comfort blanket.

‘Tony?’ Henry is short of breath, his eyes are pinched and his clothes ruffled.

‘Hey.’

Henry sits next to him and looks at the bottle clutched between his legs. ‘Don’t do this.’

‘Why not?’

‘I need you not to.’ And Tony knows it’s a lie but it comforts him anyway.

‘I’m not going to drink it.’

‘Then give it to me.’

Tony shakes his head. ‘I just need it.’

‘Why do you keep torturing yourself?’ Henry stares out over the monument like he already knows the answer.

Someone is laughing. Tony’s hands clench around the bottle and he hangs his head. ‘I don’t know.’ But he does, he just can’t bring himself to say it.

‘Then maybe it’s time to stop.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Come to a meeting.’

Tony shakes his head. ‘That won’t help.’

‘Then come to my place. We’ll watch a stupid movie and make fun of it and pig out on popcorn and soda.’ Henry reaches for the bottle and it’s easier to let go, so he does.

‘It was my fault.’ His voice cracks because even though he doesn’t want to say it, he needs to. Henry didn’t really know Steve and somehow that makes it important. Everyone else knows already.

‘It wasn’t.’ And even though they’re the words he wanted to hear, somehow they hurt more than if he’d said the opposite.

‘I loved him, Henry.’

‘Yeah,’ says Henry, ‘I know.’

Tony laughs, because of course Henry knows. Henry hugs him and Tony’s laughter becomes tears.


End file.
